Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

"Because Of My Identity:" Valuing The Experiences Of Latina Students In The Culturally Responsive Service-~Learning Classroom, Janessa Schilmoeller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This qualitative case study examined the experiences of three Latina students in a higher education service-learning program. A review of service-learning literature found limited research dedicated to understanding the qualitatively different experiences of students of color operating in historically and predominantly white higher education institutions’ service-learning programs. Though the diversity benefits of service-learning are documented, research is inconclusive on whether service-learning program culture adequately meets the needs of all racially/ethnically diverse students. The study utilized student interviews and classroom observation to build understanding of the unique experiences of three Latina students participating in a service-learning course taught by a Latina …

An Examination Of Academic Grit In Urban High Schools, Ronald Gorman

Dissertations

Currently, in America’s schools, approximately one in five high school students will not graduate with his or her peers, and many others will never receive a high school diploma (Stillwell & Sable, 2013). Many students arrive in our nation’s high schools without the requisite skills to be successful, and when they exhibit failure for the first time, a large percentage of them do not have the passion and perseverance to accomplish their long term goals – otherwise known as “academic grit,” a term coined by Duckworth (2007), a leading researcher in the area.

To investigate the issues mentioned above, a …

Table Of Contents, Antonio Medina-Rivera Ph.D, Lee F. Wilberschied Ph.D., Heba A.N. El Attar Ph.D

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

Enhancing The Chinese Writing Skills Of Non-Chinese Speaking Students, Joanna Kar Wai Cheng

Practical Social and Industrial Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Negotiation And Development Of Writing Teacher Identities In Elementary Education, Shartriya M. Collier, Suzanne Scheld, Ian Barnard, Jackie Stallcup

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Identity development in writing is a unique process. While many studies have explored the process of developing a professional identity among future teachers, few studies have investigated how teacher candidates develop a writing teacher’s identity. This study explores the development and negotiation of writing teacher identity among 21 pre-service multiple-subject teacher candidates at a large public institution in California. More specifically, the study examines the students’ journeys as they transformed from students of writing in a university methods course to student teachers of writing in a local school district. Our findings indicate that the use of a sociocultural-based approach to …

Crossing The Street: Civic Engagement And The Politics Of Belonging Among Latino And Jewish Middle School Students In Northern California, Jennifer Lucko

Education | Faculty Conference Presentations

In this paper, I draw on 10 months of fieldwork with English language learners in Northern California to explore the possibilities and limitations of Participatory Action Research (PAR) in schools doubly segregated by race and class. Today much of the progress integrating American public schools that occurred in the decade following Brown vs. Board of Education has been reversed—even as the overall population of public school students has become increasingly diverse (Orfield et. al. 2014). During the 2011-2012 academic year, 55% of Latino students and 45% of Black students in California attended intensely segregated schools (i.e., 91-100% minority students), and …

Evaluating English-Learner Inclusion As An Effective Educational Strategy For English-Learner Students, Grace Dreyer

Senior Honors Theses

The United States of America has experienced unprecedented growth in the percentage of English Learners students enrolling in schools across the country. While federal guidelines and policies have been implemented within the past fifty years to hold school systems accountable for effectively education LEP students, there is no mandated model for educating English Language Learners. The massive number of students speaking foreign languages is a relatively recent issue, and government policy allows schools to operate with considerable flexibility; consequently, a variety of self-contained and English-inclusion strategies have emerged. Reducing costs and a number of other factors have led more school …

Nonstandard Languages: The Outcasts Of The Language Revitalization Movement, Whitney Snowden

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis compares the failures of the creolization movement with the success of the language revitalization movement and seeks to determine which elements are missing from the former to make it as successful as the latter. Education policy, identity, and language ideology are all examined as contributors to the future success of creole inclusivity in education and society, as well as the potential benefits such a movement would include. Specifically examined are Siegel’s research on creole education and Armstrong’s work on language ideology.

2015 Indian American Read-In, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Cultural Read-Ins

This event was co-sponsored by the Indian Student Association, Peer Multicultural Educators (PME), the IRC, the English team, and the History/Social Science team.

Performance by: Indian Student Association

2015 Lgbtqa Read-In, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

Cultural Read-Ins

This event was co-sponsored by Spectrum, Peer Multicultural Educators (PME), the IRC, and the English team.

Assessing Student Perceptions Of Indigenous Science Co-Educators, Interest In Stem, And Identity As A Scientist: A Pilot Study, Sarah Alkholy, Fidji Gendron, Tanya Dahms, Maria Pontes Ferreira

Nutrition and Food Science Faculty Research Publications

Minorities are underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, post-secondary STEM education, and show high academic attrition rates. Academic performance and retention improve when culturally relevant support is provided. The interface of Western science and Indigenous science provides an opportunity for bridging this divide. We hypothesized that there would be regional (U.S.A. vs. Canada) differences amongst post-secondary students regarding these variables: perceptions of traditional Elders as STEM co-educators; interest in STEM; and self-identity as a scientist. We conducted a short-term longitudinal pilot study of an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional, and cross-cultural STEM course in the spring of 2013. This …

Qualitative Phenomenological Study Exploring Instructional Practices That Contribute To Academic Success For Public Elementary School English Language Learners, Mechelle Champion

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore effective instructional strategies of mainstream classroom teachers working with English Language Learners (ELLs). Many teachers feel unprepared to adequately educate English Language Learners. School systems have attempted to rectify this situation by providing teachers with professional development that provides instructional strategies which may or may not be effective. This study answered the questions: What teaching strategies do teachers and administrators perceive to have the most positive impact on learning for ELLs?; How does the culture of the classroom and school impact ELLs’ academic success?; and What are building level administrators’ …

I Learned More From Them Than They Did From Me: Shifting From Deficit To Asset-Based Perspectives In Service-Learning, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo

Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission

Research is presented on a Conceptual Model for Cultural Engagement (CMCE) service-learning course for inservice teachers.  The teachers worked with tweens from a non-profit youth organization to showcase their Latino community.  Research data reveals that the course did implement the CMCE, emphasizing asset-based perspectives of the youth and their communities.

"Sometimes The Perspective Changes": Reflections On A Photography Workshop With Multicultural Students In Italy, Robin L. Danzak

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

This article describes and evaluates an 8-week photography workshop, FotoLab, conducted in Italy at an afterschool-tutoring program for students acquiring Italian as an additional language. Seventeen students, age 8-17 and originating from 9 countries, participated. Co-facilitated by three international educator-researchers, FotoLab's purpose was to promote self-expression, collaboration, and visual literacy. Through a qualitative inquiry of the FotoLab curriculum, photographs and videos, field notes, and student questionnaires, this article reflects on themes of multiculturalism and multilingualism, collaboration, and visual literacy within a sociocultural animation framework. While expressions of cultural and linguistic identity emerged, findings emphasize the challenges and benefits of teamwork …

The Effects Of Student Self-Assessment With Goal Setting On Fourth Grade Mathematics Students: Creating Self-Regulating Agents Of Learning, Laura Clift

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

With the national trend toward student accountability as learners, few studies have identified effective instructional strategies that motivate elementary students in becoming agents of learning and the effect of these strategies on academic achievement. This quantitative study investigated the effect of student self-assessment with goal setting (SAGS), based on the work of Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, and Chappuis (2006), on elementary school students’ academic achievement and motivation in mathematics. This study employed a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, nonequivalent control-group design. Participants were 130 students drawn from six intact classes of fourth graders from five elementary schools located in a large Archdiocese in the …

A Mixed-Methods (Quantitative-Qualitative) Study To Identify The Perceived Level Of, Zeky Zardo

Dissertations

Different approaches to developing leaders have been established through various forms of self-assessment, action learning, and education and training activities (Smither et al., 2005). The existing body of research on the impact and success of college and university leadership development programs focuses heavily on undergraduate leadership programs and not graduate-level programs such as the Master of Business Administration (MBA) or the doctorate. The purpose of this mixed-methods (quantitative–qualitative) study was to identify the perceived level of transformational leadership skill development by students enrolled in a doctoral program in organizational leadership. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to …

The Role Of Self-Awareness In Developing Global Competence: A Qualitative Multi-Case Study, Stacy D. Shipman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The current era of globalization and unprecedented global migration is creating the need for schools to educate students for global competence (GC). Multiple researchers (Boix Mansilla & Jackson, 2011; Hunter, 2004; Hunter et al., 2006; Morales & Ogden, 2013) suggest that self-awareness is the core dimension of GC, but about which very little is known. This paper considers the demonstrations of self-awareness in the development of GC. Using Kim's (2008) Intercultural Personhood Theory and the specific components of personal and social communication processes, self-awareness was investigated in East African immigrants. Findings suggest that the construct of self-awareness dimensionalizes differently for …

School Leadership Along The Trajectory From Monolingual To Multilingual, Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Sarah Hesson, Kate Menken

Publications and Research

This article explores the critical role of school leaders in language policy change, and specifically in shifting their language education policies and practices from monolingual to multilingual. We examine the process of language policy change in three schools that were involved in a project aimed at increasing the knowledge base of school leaders about bilingualism and language learning, and which required that participating schools use bilingualism as a resource in instruction and cultivate a school-wide ecology of multilingualism. The project encouraged translanguaging pedagogical strategies that engage the entire linguistic repertoire of emergent bilinguals flexibly. Our findings demonstrate that the school …

Unpacking The Discipline Gap: Referral Categories And School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions And Supports, Christopher Michael Barclay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of efforts to racially integrate schools and the recent accountability movement, U.S. students’ access to equitable education remains elusive. Research demonstrates that discipline procedures disproportionately remove racial minority students from the classroom, creating a “discipline gap.” Racial disparities in discrete disciplinary infraction types (e.g., disruption, aggression) have shown nuanced patterns across groups and school levels. Moreover, the relationship between school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) – a framework for promoting positive behavior and preventing conflict – and the discipline gap is unclear. This investigation explored racial/ethnic disparities per infraction type (e.g. disruption, verbal abuse) and the relationship …

Not Another One: The Over Identification Of Hispanic Children In Ecse, Gail I. Becker, Aaron R. Deris

Special Education Department Publications

This session presents a current study that examined the overrepresentation of Hispanic English language learners in early childhood settings. Results of this phenomenological study will be reviewed along with implications for practitioners. Participants will gain an understanding of the needs of English language learners and ways to increase school professionals' efficacy.

Indigenous Education Through Dance And Ceremony : A Mexica Palimpsest, Ernesto Colín

Faculty Pub Night

No abstract provided.

Cultural Times, Multicultural Center

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Wmu International News Fall 2015, Haenicke Institute

WMU International News

• Internationalizing the arts
• Friends from Kurdistan find musical home at Western
• 5 Music lessons from South Vietnam
• Note taken on this WMU trombonist on an international stage
• Flutist composer coins new genre, Universal Americanism
• Music WMU professor takes worldly approach in researching the healing power of music
• Dominican Republic art calloborative brings interactive exhibit to WMU
• Cross-cultural graphic designer and artist conjoins east and west technology and creativity
• Coupling art and architecture opens doors to China for WMU professor
• Book Arts in Venice study abroad program
• Engineering alumnus masters theater in India
• Dancer becomes vehicle for social change in Panama

Success And The Other[Ed] Woman: Examining The Persistence Of Female Students From Saudi Arabia, Dawn M. Winters

Dissertations

With the influx of international students on American campuses, it is imperative that universities seek solutions to unique challenges surrounding their retention. More specifically, because women from Saudi Arabia are accustomed to highly-structured gendered practices in their home country that diametrically oppose those in the United States, they represent a sub-group within a sub-group of the often-generalized international students. Relatively few studies have been conducted regarding the academic persistence of specific groups of international students. The goal of this narrative analysis was to examine the salutogenic aspects of the persistence of Saudi women using Vincent Tinto’s (1997) revised model of …

P-16 Initiative, Uno Service Learning Academy

Newsletters 2015-2016

This issue of P-16 Initiative features Communication & Leadership Skills Learned Through Teaching, From Trash to Treasure, Inclusive Communities Ethnic Potluck, Exploring Culture Through Art, Delicious Food and Good Company, Exploring Native American Culture and Music, Black Votes Matter, Inclusivity in Physical Activity, And Justice for All: Positive Policing, Birth to 5: Promoting Language and Learning, and Letter from the Program Coordinator Julie Dierberger.

Transnational English Language Teaching: Opportunities For Teacher Learning And Development, Sarina Chugani Molina

School of Leadership and Education Sciences: Faculty Scholarship

As a teacher educator, I have long been interested in looking for ways in which to provide educational opportunities for students, particularly for those who are unable to receive education due to a variety of social and contextual factors. As a faculty member of a University dedicated to the values of equity and social justice, I looked for ways in which to embed these important principles into our TESOL teacher education program. In the fall of 2012, I had the opportunity to meet the founder of Kito International, a nonprofit organization in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time, our School of …

Furendei Wama Garifuna Aprendemos En Garifuna, Emmanuel Melgoza-Alfaro

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Entre el Pacífico y la Costa de Nicaragua hay una brecha cultural. En la Costa hay comunidades étnicas y una de ellas es la comunidad Garífuna. Esta comunidad ha estado trabajando en la revitalización de su lengua y su cultura. Durante mi primer viaje a Orinoco, escuché a la maestra de lengua Garífuna hablar de la importancia de la revitalización de la lengua garífunas en la cultura. Se han hecho muchos esfuerzos por medio del gobierno regional, la comunidad Garífuna y organizaciones internacionales para revitalizar esta lengua. Esta comunidad ha estado trabajando para revitalizar tanto la lengua como la cultura …

Culturally Responsive Contexts: Establishing Relationships For Inclusion, Mere Berryman, Therese Ford, Ann Nevin, Suzanne Soohoo

Education Faculty Articles and Research

As our education systems become more culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse, rather than benefiting and learning from each other, we still expect all students to be represented within the same curriculum, pedagogy and testing regimen or we form separate enclaves resulting in marginalizaton. When diverse students have physical and/or learning disabilities, marginalization is further exacerbated and problematized. In this paper, the authors theorise within an alternative framework that we have termed relational and culturally responsive inclusion. Based on key understandings from our own research, much of it derived from Kaupapa Māori and Freirean philosophies, we encourage a framework where establishing …

Preparing Linguistically Responsive Teachers: Why Service-Learning Is Such A Good Idea, Sandra Rodriguez-Arroyo

Scholarship of Metropolitan Mission

Research data will be presented on a service-learning experience through which teacher candidates (TCs) worked with ELLs from a local middle school.  Even though TCs expressed concerns on their ability to communicate with the ELLs and their families, they engaged with them and confronted their own perceived barriers.  TCs learned to overcome the communication barrier to implement quality academic experiences and in the process developed caring relationships with ELLs.

Integrated Reading And Writing: A Case Of Korean English Language Learners, Hyonsuk Cho, Janina Brutt-Griffler

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This study reports Korean English language learners’ perceived needs concerning their learning of reading and writing and how the integrated reading and writing instruction impacts their reading comprehension and summary-writing abilities. The study also delineates teacher’s challenges faced during the instruction. A total of 93 students in a middle school in Korea participated in a needs survey, and 69 students at three proficiency levels received the integrated instruction. The study found that students desired extra help on their writing to gain balanced English competence; also they wanted to learn reading and writing together. After the intervention, students at intermediate and …